When you are in the garden you lose all track of time. I was out there the other day watering until 8pm. I wasn’t in the garden the whole time but in bursts of several hours and with the lovely long summer daylight hours it is so easy to blur an afternoon into an evening without realising it. It was actually quite pleasant. I had … Continue reading The state of the Garden Part Three of Three (or possibly four)
Officially it is the first week back in the garden after the holidays. Last week didn’t count even though I did loiter in the garden a little, but as the first week of the year it was only a half one and to be honest I wasn’t up to gardening much as I have been struck down with a nasty head cold that has plagued … Continue reading The state of the Garden Part One of Three (or possibly four)
Today is Friday and the end of the week. The work in the garden has cranked up a notch and now instead of just potting about fiddling with this and tinkering with that, it has become heaving lifting, ardous weeding and a significant amount of digging and forking over the soil. This has me arriving at the end of the week completely exhausted. So instead … Continue reading Today in pictures
Sector 4 is all fruit so no planning needed there – all I have to do before the season changes is evict the aging three year old strawberries and replace them with their offspring runners to keep the production of delicious berries at an optimum. So that leaves the back row that forms sector 5. If you take the two raspberry beds (27 and 28) … Continue reading Garden Planning – the Final Push
I’m starting to get the hang of this flower garden thing. Especially with my fabulous organisational sector system. Instead of being rather low on the priority list – because they are only flowers, they now get seen to every Friday. Having said that, the poor plants in the old Friday sector do suffer a little from end-of-week-itis as opposed to those in the Monday sector … Continue reading Off with their heads
I’m relatively new to growing flowers. In the past I just saw them as frivolous accessories that were more of a luxury in the garden and demanded just as much attention as the delicious edible goodies that were a much better use of my time. This was quite a harsh sentiment and now I look at things a little differently. Flowers in my garden are … Continue reading How flowers get their colours.
I made a terrible mistake on the weekend. I was a bit knackered on Sunday and had to have a bit of a lie down. I fear I may have over done things during the week trying to whip the garden into shape and get things back on time. The good thing is I’m nearly there. The tomatoes, peppers, brassicas, boysenberry, gooseberry, spring onions and … Continue reading Is anybody in there?
Ok. I’m taking my second foray into the world of flower growing. Last season saw me build a bed for the sole purpose of having cut flowers. It was a brilliant idea. I figured if I treated them as a crop then I would have greater chance of having beautiful flowers to have, hold and give away. I even bought some lovely vases with the … Continue reading Flowers: now what are they all about?
I’m not a great florist, largely due to the fact I’m a terrible flower grower. My flower garden experiment this year has been ‘interesting’ for want of a flattering word that doesn’t exaggerate too much. The three biggest flaws in my plans were: I didn’t have a clue as to what I was doing. The difference between growing flowers and growing vegetables is like speaking … Continue reading Did you know carrot tops were once the height of fashion?
Ok I am starting to see the merits of flower gardening. Although I am now wracked with guilt as the flower seedlings have come closer in the green family circle and are now considered precious green babies. Which is a long way from the recent relationship of distant relatives, twice removed, from the wrong side of the tracks. And treated as such. We can thank … Continue reading Wow – Veggies don’t do that!
